


Your Love, My Love and Forever

by LadyLondonderry



Series: 28 Brixby Place [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Magic, Marriage, Soulmates, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 22:10:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15917265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLondonderry/pseuds/LadyLondonderry
Summary: His hands shake a little as he raises the bowl in front of him. It’s not like he hasn’t had these words memorized since he was six years old and dreaming of his wedding day.“Let there forever be more as loving as weLove strong as a galeAs deep as the seaLet us look to the futureAnd learn from the pastShow us where our loveDoes continually last.”





	Your Love, My Love and Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This started out as a drabble on tumblr, but I thought it needed a real home connected to its parent work. Also, it's all sap.
> 
> All of the quotes in this fic belong to other fics much, much better than this one. All the ones still available to read are linked in the endnotes, so please give them a read and bask in them.

Harry checks each room, one by one, to find all eight children sleeping peacefully. It’s a rare occurrence so early in the evening, and he breathes a sigh of relief as he closes the last bedroom door and makes his way up to the attic, treading lightly and carefully stepping over the two steps that creak the worst.

The aromatic scents of his workroom welcome him when he opens the door at the top, his dried flowers and spices hanging neatly where he’s tied them above his workbench, his mini cauldrons simmering peacefully as the timers in front of trickle sand down.

Louis is laying on the old wooden garden bench that they’d rescued from the skip about a month ago after the original loveseat in that spot had caught fire. It’s covered in all the leftover quilts that sit unneeded in summer, a patchwork of colours and designs and frayed edges that add just enough comfort to the bench that Harry finds himself beginning to drift off as soon as he sits down.

(not that that’s hard, with how little sleep he generally gets).

“Is it time?” asks Louis, yawning as he sits up from where he had clearly been dozing. His sleep-rumpled hair is sticking up in adorable angles and he’s looking blearily up at Harry and for a minute Harry considers putting this off another night, and just pulling Louis to bed with him, because heavens know they need it. 

But the public ceremony for their wedding was last weekend, and they still haven’t gotten the chance to have the private, traditional ceremony yet. It’s hard, with so many kids wandering around. They’ve got a getaway planned for the summer, that’s not for months yet.

“It’s time,” Harry says. “Come on, sleepyhead, sit up.”

Louis groans and forces himself to his feet. He stumbles over and wraps his arms around Harry’s middle, throwing both of them off balance a little. Harry giggles, steadying him and then awkwardly walking both of them over to the workbench, feet getting tangled together in the few steps they take.

“Now remember not to expect too much,” Harry says as they disentangle themselves enough to sit on the workbench. Harry does some fancy footwork that nearly lands him on his face as he turns his body and straddles the bench, facing Louis. Louis very neatly pulls his legs up and sits cross-legged. He makes it look so easy.

“I know, I know,” Louis says, his lips quirking up. “Not every universe works out the same way, we can’t assume we always find each other  _blah blah blah._  Hazza you’ve been repeating this to me so often I get the feeling you’re the one who’s gotten your hopes up.”

“Oh I absolutely have my hopes up,” Harry says. “Yes, one hundred percent.” He takes out the old, worn box that he’s kept below his work desk for as long as he can remember, clicking the lid open and taking out the two worn, wooden cups from inside, handing one to Louis. “I mean, as far as I’m concerned we’re soulmates, and any universe in which we don’t find each other is going to be a sad one.”

Louis laughs, looking fond. “Okay, fine. Don’t get your hopes up Hazza. Even if we’re the only ones who have made it, you can know that at least we got it perfectly right once.”

Harry tries to look serious as he draws out the last part of the kit - the small glass vial filled with a shimmering purple liquid. He still knows he’s scrunching his nose up though, trying not to smile. It’s true. He knows, deep inside himself, that they got it right. He just hopes their other selves got the chance to find this happiness as well.

He uncorks the vial and pours it, first into Louis’s cup, and then to his own. Even though it looks as though it only holds a few ounces, both cups are easily filled to the brim.

“Okay,” Harry takes a deep breath. “I say the words. We drink. We hope it doesn’t taste too awful.”

His hands shake a little as he raises the bowl in front of him. It’s not like he hasn’t had these words memorized since he was six years old and dreaming of his wedding day. 

_“Let there forever be more as loving as we_  
_Love strong as a gale  
_ _As deep as the sea_

_Let us look to the future_  
And learn from the past  
Show us where our love  
Does continually last.”

Harry can feel his heart beating hard enough to jump from his chest, as he shakily raises the cup to Louis’s lips and Louis does the same to him. They drink slowly; it tastes of something familiar that he can’t quite place, and looks like liquid galaxies as he watches Louis do the same. He feels his heart calm and then begin to slow, until darkness overtakes his vision.

—

He’s aware of Louis and only Louis at first. Then, slowly, of a world around them. It’s a slow materialization; the space is dim, like he’s just walked in from the outdoors. He reaches out and grasps Louis’s hand after a little fumbling, and Louis squeezes tightly back.

As his eyes adjust, Harry squints around, trying to make sense of where they are. “Is this a… theatre?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. It feels like the sort of place where they should speak in hushed voices. 

“It looks like the one downtown,” Louis says. “But older. And grander.”

“Where is…” Harry falters. He turns in a circle. “Is it really just us? Are we alone?”

Louis shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s it,” he says. “I think this is the entrance. We should look around a little bit.”

He walks forward and Harry follows, keeping their hands interlocked. Their footsteps echo around the empty foyer, a grand staircase in front of them and a chandelier hanging above that looks like it would belong in a palace. No lights are on, and even having gotten used to the light Harry finds it dim. Eerie.

“Come on,” Louis says softly, pulling him closer as he locates a hallway to take them toward.

They walk down the hallway, carpeted and dim, for what feels like forever. At first, Harry doesn’t feel like they’re going anywhere, like they’re trapped in a space and the place is moving around them. At some point, though, he begins to realise that the silence is fading, replaced with a steady thrum of what he first thinks is a faulty, banging heater unit, but the more it continues the more it transforms; the sounds becoming more distinct: the sound of voices.

_“I just walked in on Harry in the shower. It was beautiful.”_

_“The first time I saw you, you were standing on a table in the middle of a frat party organizing a dance off and you made me do the worm. You were like, completely sober, but you kept yelling about how someone needed to show you some real dance moves or else no one was getting any cake even though there was no cake and -”_

__“I prefer to think of myself as an extremely attractive love barnacle. Or a seductive sloth.”_  
_

_“I should have told you. Every time I said I couldn’t live without you, I should have told you that I didn’t want to.“  
_

_“When you smile, like, really smile? Your eyes crinkle.”  
_

_“Exhibit A: my shower curtain.”  
_

Harry’s trying so hard to pay attention to the voices that he almost doesn’t notice that the hallway is getting brighter, their steps softer, the carpet bold and colourful. 

“Harry…” Louis tugs his arm a little. “Look.”

Harry looks over and follows his line of sight. There’s a doorway to their right, and through the doorway there is… them. Harry and Louis, sitting at a breakfast table in the morning sun. They look bleary eyed as they sip coffee, but their feet are tangled under the table.

“It’s us,” Harry says in awe. “We aren’t the only ones.”

Louis looks back at him, and he looks a little dazed but his eyes are twinkling. “Can’t you hear?” he says. “I think there’s a lot of us.”

He tugs Harry down the hallway faster this time, and Harry notices the bounce that’s been added in his step. The voices continue the further they go, getting louder and clearer.

_“Harry, you can’t light a candle in a fucking library, you lunatic.”_

_“I want to give you everything you should have had the the first time around. Everything you deserved.”_

_“I thought you said you’d jump me every day you didn’t go to the store.”  
_

_“Have you made much progress on Mansfield Park yet?”_

It’s Harry who pulls them to a stop this time - there’s a doorway to their left, and through it is… the outdoors? It’s a large expanse of deep green grass with a gloomy sky and a cottage in the distance. There they are, sitting in the grass with a dog happily jumping around them, speaking quietly to one another even though all the world around them wouldn’t have noticed if they shouted.

The Louis in the field glances up and locks eyes with Harry. He smiles the briefest of smiles before turning and resting his head on his Harry’s shoulder.

“Must be some magic in that one,” Louis whispers, making Harry jump.

“They look like they’ve been through something,” Harry says. “It feels… dark, there somehow.”

“Everyone goes through something at some point,” Louis says. “You did, too. That’s how you found me.”

Harry blushes and leans over to peck Louis on the nose, who giggles. Louis pulls them forward again.

The doorways get more frequent, closer together. The next one has Harry and Louis sitting in a coffee shop around a number of tables pushed together and a number of other people, all with books in front of them. 

They pass a doorway that seems to lead out to the deck of a ship, and there they are in pirate gear, embracing and oblivious to the world around them.

Then there’s a doorway to a bakery, small and quiet, where they’re flirting over the countertop.

The more they walk, the more Harry starts to understand that they’ve only just scratched the surface. 

A summer fete where they’re walking hand in hand.

A school library where Harry is sleeping on the couch as Louis works.

A small flat clearly high in the air where they dangle their legs over the balcony.

Most of the worlds they pass by take no notice, sometimes one of them looks up, sometimes both of them do. Sometimes Harry spots a familiar face like Zayn, or Niall from University. Or that one kid Liam from childhood. 

The doors begin to blur together, each and every universe the same result. Love, love. Loved. 

Suddenly they stumble out into an open area. The large, circular concert hall they had stood at the foyer of. There’s a symphony of people up on stage, and most of them have a certain… dullness to them. The music is muted, the voices from around them continuing to mumur as they had been in the hallway. But Harry spies himself up there, the conductor, with wild curls and his back to the crowd. He spots Louis next, playing the violin and looking for all the world like he’s the only one on stage who truly matters.

Louis tugs his arm again and motions up to one of the balconies. There they are, gazing at each other like they’ve got the world in their eyes.

Harry turns back and notices behind them and notices a cafe at the back of the hall. There they are, sharing something yellow that Harry knows almost instinctively is a lemon meringue. 

There they are and there they are again, and the most Harry looks, the closer he moves to Louis, the more he realises that he could wander the halls of this building for years and he might never find every universe that they’re together in.

“This is us,” he whispers to Louis, finally letting go of his hand only so that he can reach his arm around his waist and draw him close.

Louis has tears shining in his eyes. “We’ve made it,” he says. “So many of us. I’ve never heard of this many before.”

“Soulmates,” Harry whispers. “That’s what we are.”

Louis nods. He smiles. Harry watches his lips quirk into that v-shape that he makes when he’s trying not to show off how happy he is. 

A kiss is what ends the ceremony and Harry knows it’s time. They need to go to sleep so they can wake up and make sure the little ones get off to school on time in the morning. He turns and wraps Louis in his arms, pulling him close and feeling the way Louis does the same. Their lips meet in the briefest of touches and the world starts to fade away around them, like watercolor running down a canvas.

Harry looks to the stage one more time to see it’s changed; it’s more of a stadium now, and there’s five people up there. He and Louis are together in the middle, microphones in hand and wearing dark, skin-tight clothing to a roaring crowd.

The last whispers die out around them as the world fades.

_“I’m too old to change. Set in my ways. I’m going to love you forever.”_

_“I choose you, Louis. Today. Tomorrow. Forever. I choose you, if you’ll have me. And I know, if we choose each other, promise to keep on choosing each other, I know we can make it through anything, even our past.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Every quote from every other universe was taken from another fic. Many of them aren't on ao3 any longer, but the ones that are are [(x)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6924601) [(x)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702023) [(x)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7062664/chapters/22668122) [(x)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11758143) [(x)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10228448/chapters/22696172) [(x)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7936057) [(x)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11256942) [(x)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7598110?view_adult=true&view_full_work=true)
> 
> Thank you for reading, thank you for being kind, thank you for loving one another, and thank you for being in this fandom with me, for however long you're here.
> 
> The ficpost is [here](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com/post/177816934409/your-love-my-love-and-forever)


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